Mary Regan

People could go up to the constituency office and all that.

And you can still go to constituency office off your backbencher.

It seems that the sort of engagement between the parties and the people has sort of broken down.

I think we can.

Like we can definitely, the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, there's no sense amongst the backbenchers there that anyone is planning to jump ship.

I think ultimately the independents can argue that this is a half a billion package and they'll hope that while the protests might continue, might be a smaller cohort protesting.

So I think the government is secure enough in that sense.

What always happens then in these no confidence motions is that the government tables a motion of confidence in themselves and

And it kind of draws a line under the issue.

But that might not necessarily be the case this time around.

You have to kind of think that the scale of the protest and also the kind of level of anger and resentment and the sense of inequality that people are feeling really came to the fore over the past week.

That's not going to go away with 500 million euro.

That's a more underlying, deep running problem that the government still has to deal with.

And then they have to deal with the other issue of how they engage with the public.

You know, this process of dealing with the NGOs is not necessarily working.

And also then just looking at the security and how they secure vital state infrastructure when we got to the brink of lockdown.

oil or fuel basically running out because people were blockading ports and the consequences that would have for every citizen in this country.

And we got so close to it.

So what does that say about the state's ability to secure vital infrastructure?

What does it say about the state's ability to keep roads open, keep routes open